You have two computers at a desk in front of you, both are
using the same case, both are running the same software, both are performing equally to
the naked eye, and both are crunching away quietly at the tests tossed at them. The
only difference between the two is the $500 separation between the price tags.

The definition of a "High End User"
is a bit shady, and in the end it is up to the users' discretion as to whether or not they
consider themselves High End Users. For the most part, however, the computers we are
amazed by and infatuated with are overkill for our common everyday computer tasks.
We all want the fastest and best thing out, if it weren't for this desire then we wouldn't
see products like 3Dfx Interactive's Voodoo2 or the Intel Pentium II grow in
popularity. Unfortunately, often times this addiction to speed can be hazardous to
the health of our bank accounts, a simple memory upgrade can turn into a need for
a new motherboard, processor, and video card.

If you happen to have an unlimited PC
Purchasing Fund then the price-tag all of these expenditures carries no weight in your
mind. In the lives of most computer junkies however, things aren't so immaculate.
Upgrading your computer to the max no longer means just tossing in a Math
Coprocessor and playing Wolfenstein at a smooth 30 frames per second, it now carries the
definition of basically upgrading everything short of buying a new system.

The Driving Force

In order for a reaction to occur, there must
be a driving force, or something that causes the reaction to take place. This basic
chemistry principle extends past the Oxygen atoms in our air to the computers we surf the
net with. Well, what drives this upgrading frenzy? The Software Industry.

The software industry, especially the gaming
industry, is constantly producing newer and more 'advanced' programs with added features,
all designed to make our lives easier or more enjoyable. With all of these software
upgrades, dealing with everything from your favorite digital pinball game to your
computer's operating system, the bar is constantly being raised for a base level of
performance. More advanced features means more lines of code behind the pretty
windows of the applications you're running. More lines of code generally means that
you'll need a faster system to process the code, and since a faster system can't be
provided for in software that burden is shifted over to the hardware world.

Relieving the Pressure

How does the Hardware Industry deal with the
pressure to perform placed on it by the Software Industry? The only way it knows how
to, by releasing newer, faster, and 'better' products every so often in order to keep up
with the now absurd pace of the rest of the industry.

A wonderful example of this would be the
evolution of the PC gaming platform. At first, the PC wasn't considered to be a
viable gaming platform, however the theories of the very first Computer Scientists who
were blessed with the punch cards in their hands seemed to be put to death by the
increasingly popular, yet incredibly simple, PC games. Evolving from titles older
Apple II and Commodore users may be familiar with, the PC gaming scene, at first,
consisted of entertaining text based games with a few graphically pleasant titles
appearing every now and then. Games like Dig-Dug and eventually Pac-Man
became common place on the home PC. Times were good, performance demands weren't too
incredibly unreasonable and just about everyone with a PC could enjoy both the
productivity and entertainment features their unique investment could provide them with.
Soon the demand for more graphically intense titles became apparent, as games moved
away from the barriers of text into an interactive graphical environment, then on to
ray-traced 1st person shooters. Over time, the 2D games we had learned to love were
knocked out of their positions in our minds by the new wave of 3D games that were more
pleasing to the eye, and at the same time, were more demanding on the hardware side of
things.

In order to keep up with the demands of
gamers, graphics cards took on a new function in addition to their standard DOS/Windows
acceleration duties, the 3D Gaming Universe came into existence faster than any big bang
could have taken place. It wasn't long before 3D only cards, like those from 3Dfx,
became part of that "home PC" configuration. It is very interesting that
the standard home PC configuration of a computer in 1998 seems to be much more than should
be necessary for a computer whose primary function is nothing more than general use.
This calls for the need for general computer usage to be defined, does it mean
business tasks or gaming too? Just like the definition of a "High End
User" the definition of what General Computer Usage is falls under the discretion of
none other, than the users themselves.